stories

I have a love affair with--you guessed it--stories. We're getting more tangled up in each other, too, as I realize how radically different my life would be without them. If I was dating stories, I would probably advise myself to cool off because this relationship may be just a tad unhealthy.

Yet I don't think about these facts until it's 11:30 at night after five sixths of a Star Wars marathon and I'm gesticulating wildly, telling the most epic tale of babysitting that I've ever told, to my third (and hopefully last) audience. I'm smiling and laughing and cringing and feeling everything and everyone is looking at me and we're so in the moment and I get so hopeful because storytelling is such a beautiful thing about being human and being alive and can't it just be like this all the time? Why can't everyone keep smiling because I'm saying the right thing?

I love making people laugh. There are these constant moments of doubt that I'm not actually as funny as people tell me because most of the time I haven't half a clue what I'm saying or where it's coming from. And sometimes my humour is mean which is a rather unfortunate side effect. It's so hard to create jokes that laugh with rather than at.

But I'm trying. With every word that I say, I'm improving my craft of this incredibly human activity. Every story, every blog, every chapter of my neglected novels has gotten me a little better at the thing that I love the most.

I don't consider myself exceptional at lying like John Green but I think I'm good at telling stories. And even if I'm not, I won't be stopping any time soon. I don't even think I know how.